'You sew neatly,' she said— though I had not, not then. I had sewn hard, and my stitches were crooked.
Then she stood and said nothing. Once or twice she drew in her breath. I thought there was something she longed to ask me, but dared not. In the end she moved away again.
And so our trap— that I had thought so lightly of, and worked so hard to lay— was finally set; and wanted only time to go quickly by
and spring it. Gentleman was hired to work as Mr Lilly's secretary until the end of April, and meant to stay out his contract to the last— 'So that the old man won't have the breaking of that to charge me with,' he said to me, laughing, 'alongside the breaking of certain other things.' He planned to leave when he was meant to— that is, the evening of the last day of the month; but, instead of taking the train for London, he would hang about, and come back to the house at the dead of night, for me and Maud. He must steal her away and not be caught, and then he must marry her— quick as he could, and before her uncle should hear of it and find her and take her home again. He had it all figured out. He could not fetch her in a pony and cart, for he should never have got it past the gate-house. He meant to bring a boat and take her off along the river, to some small out-of-the-way church where she would not be known as Mr Lilly's niece.
Now, to marry a girl at any church you must have been living in the parish of it for fifteen days; but he fixed that up, as he fixed everything. A few days after Maud had promised him her hand, he found some excuse and took a horse and went riding off to Maidenhead. He got a special licence for the wedding there— that meant they should not have to put out the banns— and then he went about the county, looking out for the right kind of church. He found one, in a place so small and broken-down it had no name— or anyway, that's what he told us. He said the vicar was a drunkard. Hard by the church there was a cottage, owned by a widow who kept black-faced pigs. For two pounds she said she would keep him a room and swear to whoever he liked that he had lived there a month.
Women like that will do anything for gentlemen like him. He got back to Briar that night looking pleased as a weasel, and handsome than ever; and he came to Maud's parlour and sat us down anc spoke to us in murmurs of all he had done.
When he had finished, Maud looked pale. She had begun to leave off eating, and was grown thin about the face. Her eyes were dark at the lids. She put her hands together.
'Three weeks,' she said.
I thought I knew what she meant. She had three weeks left to
make herself want him. I saw her counting the days in her head, and thinking.
She was thinking of what was coming at the end of them.
For, she never learned to love him. She never grew to like his kisses or the feel of his 83
hand upon hers. She still shrank from him in a miserable fright— then nerved herself to face him, let him draw her close, let him touch her hair and face. I supposed at first he thought her backwards. Then I guessed he liked her to be slow. He would be kind to her, then pressing, and then, when she grew awkward or confused he would say,
'Oh! now you are cruel. I think you mean only to practise on my love.'
'No indeed,' she would answer. 'No, how can you say it?'
'I don't think you love me as you ought.'
'Not love you?'
'You won't show it. Perhaps'— a n d h e r e h e ' d g i v e a s l y g l a n c e , t o c a t c h m y eye— 'perhaps there's someone else you care for?'
Then she would let him kiss her, as if to prove that there was not. She would be stiff, or weak as a puppet. Sometimes she would almost weep. Then he would comfort her.
He would call himself a brute that did not deserve her, that ought to give her up to a better lover; then she would let him kiss her again. I heard the meeting of their lips, from my cold place beside the window. I heard the creeping of his hand upon her skirt.
Now and then I would look— just to be sure he had not put her in too much of a fright.
But then, I didn't know what was worse— seeing her face shut up, her cheek made pale, her mouth against his beard; or meeting her eye as the tears were pressed from it and came spilling.
'Let her alone, why don't you?' I said to him one day, when she had been called from the room to find a book for her uncle. 'Can't you see she don't care for it, having you pestering her like that?'
He looked at me queerly for a second; then raised his brows. 'Not care for it?' he said.
'She is longing for it.'
'She is afraid of you.'
'She is afraid of herself. Girls like her always are. But let them squirm and be dainty as much as they like, they all want the same thing in the end.'
He paused, then laughed. He thought it a filthy kind of joke.
'What she wants from you is to be taken from Briar,' I said. 'For the rest, she knows nothing.'
'They all say they know nothing,' he answered, yawning. 'In their hearts, in their dreams, they know it all. They take it in their milk from the breasts of their mothers.
Haven't you heard her, in her bed? Doesn't she wriggle, and sigh? She is sighing for me. You must listen harder. I ought to come and listen with you. Shall I do that? Shall I come to your room, tonight? You could take me to her. We could watch to see how hard her heart beats. You could put back her gown for me to see.'
I knew he was teasing. He would never have risked losing everything, for a lark like that. But I heard his words, and imagined him coming. I imagined putting back her gown. I blushed, and turned away from him. I said,
'You should never find my room.'
'I should find it, all right. I've had the plan of the house, from the little knife-boy. He's a good little boy, with a chattering mouth.' He laughed again, rather harder, and stretched in his chair. 'Only think of the sport! And how would it harm her? I would creep, like a mouse. I am good at creeping. I would only want to look. Or, she might 84
like to wake and find me there— like the girl in the poem.'
I knew many poems. They were all about thieves being plucked by soldiers from their sweethearts' arms; and one was about a cat being tipped down a well. I didn't know the one he mentioned now, however, and not knowing made me peevish.
'You leave her alone,' I said. Perhaps he heard something in my voice. He looked me over, and his voice turned rich.
'Oh, Suky,' he said, 'have you grown squeamish? Have you learned sweet ways, after your spell with the quality? Who would have said you should take so to serving ladies, with pals like yours, and a home like your home! What would Mrs Sucksby say— and Dainty, and Johnny!— if they could see your blushes now?'
'They would say I had a soft heart,' I said, firing up. 'Maybe I do. Where's the crime in that?'
'God damn it,' he answered, firing up in his turn. 'What did a soft heart ever do for a girl like you? What would it do, for a girl like Dainty? Except, perhaps, kill her.' He nodded to the door through which Maud had gone to her uncle. 'Do you suppose,' he said, 'she wants your qualms? She wants your grip, on the laces of her stays— on her comb, on the handle of her chamber-pot. For God's sake, look at you!' I had turned and picked up her shawl, and begun to fold it. He pulled it from my hands. 'When did you become so meek, so tidy? What do you imagine you owe, to her? Listen to me. I know her people. I'm one of them. Don't talk to me as if she keeps you at Briar for kindness' sake— nor as if you came out of sweetness of temper! Your heart— as you call it— and hers are alike, after alclass="underline" they are like mine, like everyone's. They resemble nothing so much as those meters you will find on gas-pipes: they only perk up and start pumping when you drop coins in. Mrs Sucksby should have taught you that.'